Intersectional Feminist Theory as a Non-Ideal Theory: Asian American Women Navigating Identity and Power

In the landscape of contemporary feminist philosophy, few questions are as pressing as how theory can directly address the lived realities of oppression. Y. Kong’s groundbreaking 2023 article “Intersectional Feminist Theory as a Non-Ideal Theory” offers a revolutionary framework for understanding how intersectional feminism functions not merely as descriptive theory, but as a powerful tool for political transformation. By centering Asian American women’s experiences of navigating identity and power, Kong demonstrates how philosophical rigor can illuminate pathways toward liberation.

The Philosophical Stakes: From Ideal to Non-Ideal Theory

Kong’s intervention begins with a crucial distinction in political philosophy between ideal and non-ideal theory. While ideal theory imagines perfectly just societies under favorable conditions, non-ideal theory grapples with the messy realities of actual injustice. Kong argues that intersectional feminism represents “a strong version of non-ideal theory” precisely because it starts from the experiences of the multiply oppressed—those whose lives reveal how multiple systems of domination interlock and reinforce each other.

This theoretical move is not merely academic. By positioning intersectional feminism as non-ideal theory, Kong establishes its practical urgency: this is theory designed not for abstract contemplation but for dismantling real structures of oppression. The focus on Asian American women’s experiences serves as both empirical grounding and theoretical intervention, challenging the white-centered narratives that have dominated much of feminist philosophy.

Three Modes of Identity-Power Relations

Kong’s analysis reveals three characteristic ways that identity and power interact in the lives of multiply oppressed individuals, particularly Asian American women:

1. Manifestation of Power-as-Oppression Through Identity Construction

The first mode examines how oppressive power manifests through the very construction of identity categories. Kong demonstrates how Asian American women’s identities are constructed through interlocking systems of racism, sexism, and orientalism. These are not separate oppressions that simply add up; rather, they create qualitatively distinct forms of subjugation.

For instance, the stereotype of the “model minority” operates simultaneously through racial and gendered logics, positioning Asian American women as both perpetual foreigners and docile subjects. This identity construction serves to maintain white supremacy while also reinforcing patriarchal norms—a manifestation of power that cannot be understood through single-axis analysis.

2. Reproduction of Power-as-Oppression

The second mode analyzes how oppressive power reproduces itself through the lived experiences of those navigating multiple identity categories. Kong shows how Asian American women often find themselves positioned as bridges or translators between communities, a form of labor that both exhausts individual resources and perpetuates systemic divisions.

This reproduction occurs through what Kong calls “identity management labor”—the constant work of code-switching, cultural translation, and strategic presentation of self required to navigate predominantly white feminist spaces while maintaining connections to Asian American communities. This labor is often invisible and uncompensated, yet essential for survival in multiple contexts.

The analysis reveals how even well-intentioned diversity initiatives can reproduce oppression by placing the burden of representation on multiply marginalized individuals. When Asian American women are expected to speak for all Asian women, or to educate others about racism within feminist movements, the very structures meant to address oppression end up reinforcing it.

3. Creation of New Forms of Power: Resistance and Solidarity

The third mode—and perhaps Kong’s most significant contribution—examines how the reconstruction of identity can generate new forms of power through resistance and solidarity. Rather than viewing identity as fixed or imposed, Kong demonstrates how Asian American women actively reconstruct their identities in ways that challenge dominant narratives and create space for collective action.

This reconstruction doesn’t mean abandoning identity categories altogether, but rather strategically deploying and redefining them. Kong provides examples of Asian American feminist organizing that creates what she calls “coalitional identities”—flexible, politically oriented identity formations that enable solidarity across difference while maintaining specificity of experience.

The Model Minority Myth and Feminist Consciousness

One of Kong’s most illuminating case studies examines how the model minority myth specifically shapes Asian American women’s relationship to feminist consciousness. The myth operates as what Kong calls a “technology of racial triangulation,” positioning Asian Americans as superior to other minorities while maintaining white supremacy.

For Asian American women, this creates unique barriers to feminist identification. The pressure to maintain family honor, combined with stereotypes of Asian female submissiveness, can make explicit feminist activism seem like a betrayal of cultural values. Yet Kong argues this apparent contradiction actually reveals the sophisticated political consciousness many Asian American women develop—one that navigates multiple systems of meaning while maintaining critical perspectives on each.

Kong introduces the concept of “strategic ambiguity” to describe how Asian American women sometimes deliberately maintain fluid relationships to both feminist and cultural identities, not out of confusion but as a form of political agency. This ambiguity becomes a resource for building unexpected alliances and avoiding the limiting effects of rigid categorization.

Philosophical Implications: Rethinking Oppression and Liberation

Kong’s framework has profound implications for how we understand both oppression and liberation. By demonstrating that power operates through identity in multiple, intersecting ways, she challenges linear models of political progress. Liberation cannot simply mean adding more groups to an existing framework; it requires fundamentally reconceptualizing how power operates.

The article engages critically with mainstream feminist philosophy’s tendency to universalize from white women’s experiences. Kong shows how concepts like “patriarchy” or “gender oppression” take on different meanings when viewed through the experiences of Asian American women who navigate racialized gender stereotypes that don’t fit neatly into white feminist frameworks.

Moreover, Kong’s analysis of solidarity-building through identity reconstruction offers a new model for coalition politics. Rather than seeking unity through sameness or hierarchy of oppressions, she proposes what she calls “intersectional praxis”—political action that maintains attention to specificity while building connections across difference.

Methodological Innovations in Feminist Philosophy

Kong’s approach represents a significant methodological innovation in feminist philosophy. Rather than proceeding through abstract argumentation alone, she grounds philosophical claims in detailed analyses of lived experience while maintaining theoretical rigor. This methodology itself embodies the non-ideal theory approach she advocates.

The article draws on multiple disciplinary resources—critical race theory, Asian American studies, feminist philosophy, and political theory—demonstrating how intersectional analysis requires crossing disciplinary boundaries. Kong shows how philosophical concepts gain new meaning when tested against the complex realities of multiply marginalized lives.

Particularly noteworthy is Kong’s use of what she calls “situated abstraction”—developing theoretical concepts that maintain connection to specific experiences while offering broader analytical purchase. This approach avoids both the false universalism of much traditional philosophy and the potential paralysis of pure particularism.

The Politics of Visibility and Invisibility

A crucial dimension of Kong’s analysis concerns the politics of visibility and invisibility for Asian American women within feminist movements. She identifies what she calls the “hypervisibility/invisibility paradox”: Asian American women are hypervisible as representatives of diversity but invisible in their specific needs and contributions.

This paradox manifests in feminist spaces where Asian American women are simultaneously celebrated as proof of inclusivity and marginalized in agenda-setting and leadership. Kong argues this dynamic reveals how multicultural feminism can sometimes function as a form of “diversity management” that maintains rather than challenges underlying power structures.

The solution, Kong suggests, lies not in demanding either complete visibility or strategic invisibility, but in what she terms “critical visibility”—forms of presence that challenge the terms on which visibility is granted while building power for substantive change.

Practical Implications for Feminist Organizing

Kong’s theoretical framework yields concrete implications for feminist political practice:

Beyond Inclusion: Structural Transformation

Kong argues that true intersectional feminism requires more than including diverse voices in existing structures. It demands fundamental transformation of how movements conceptualize goals, strategies, and success. This means questioning assumptions about what counts as “feminist issues” and whose experiences define feminist priorities.

Coalition Building Through Difference

Rather than seeking unity through lowest common denominators, Kong proposes building coalitions that maintain and leverage differences as sources of strength. Her analysis of successful Asian American feminist organizations demonstrates how groups can work together while acknowledging distinct positions and needs.

The Role of Discomfort and Conflict

Kong challenges the notion that solidarity requires comfort or agreement. She argues that productive discomfort—the kind that arises from confronting one’s own complicity in systems of oppression—is essential for genuine transformation. This reframes conflict within feminist movements not as failure but as potential catalyst for growth.

Accountability Structures

The article emphasizes the need for accountability mechanisms that recognize multiple, intersecting forms of harm. Kong proposes “intersectional accountability”—processes that address how individuals and organizations may simultaneously experience oppression and perpetrate it in different dimensions.

Theoretical Contributions and Future Directions

Kong’s article makes several significant theoretical contributions:

Expanding Non-Ideal Theory

By establishing intersectional feminism as non-ideal theory, Kong provides a framework for understanding how philosophical work can directly address injustice. This has implications beyond feminism for how political philosophy engages with real-world oppression.

Identity as Process

Kong’s analysis of identity reconstruction challenges static notions of identity, showing how political agency emerges through the active negotiation and transformation of identity categories.

Power as Multidirectional

The three-mode framework reveals power as operating in multiple directions simultaneously—not simply top-down but through lateral relations and internalized structures.

Future Research Directions

Kong’s framework opens several avenues for future research:

• Examining how other multiply marginalized groups navigate identity-power relationships
• Developing intersectional approaches to other areas of political philosophy
• Creating empirical studies that test and refine the three-mode framework
• Exploring transnational applications of intersectional non-ideal theory

Contemporary Urgency: From Theory to Practice

Writing in 2023, Kong’s work speaks directly to urgent contemporary challenges:

The Rise of Anti-Gender Movements

As anti-gender movements gain power globally, Kong’s framework helps explain why simplistic defenses of “gender ideology” fail. Her intersectional analysis reveals how these movements exploit real grievances about economic inequality and cultural change, requiring more sophisticated responses.

Digital Activism and Identity

Kong’s analysis of identity reconstruction has particular relevance for digital activism, where identities are simultaneously more fluid and more surveilled. Her framework helps navigate the opportunities and dangers of online feminist organizing.

Global Feminist Solidarity

As feminist movements increasingly operate transnationally, Kong’s model for building solidarity across difference becomes crucial. Her emphasis on maintaining specificity while building connections offers an alternative to both universal feminism and fragmenting particularism.

Critical Engagements and Responses

Kong’s article has already generated significant scholarly discussion:

Philosophical Debates

Philosophers have engaged with Kong’s claim about non-ideal theory, with some arguing she goes too far in rejecting ideal theory’s value, while others suggest she doesn’t go far enough in critiquing philosophy’s abstraction from lived experience.

Empirical Applications

Social scientists have begun testing Kong’s three-mode framework empirically, examining how it applies to different populations and contexts. Initial studies suggest the framework’s robustness while revealing needs for cultural specification.

Activist Responses

Feminist organizers have found Kong’s framework particularly useful for addressing internal movement conflicts and building more effective coalitions. Several organizations report using her concepts in training and strategy development.

Conclusion: Toward Liberatory Praxis

Y. Kong’s “Intersectional Feminist Theory as a Non-Ideal Theory” represents a landmark contribution to feminist philosophy and political theory. By centering Asian American women’s experiences of navigating identity and power, Kong demonstrates how rigorous philosophical analysis can illuminate pathways toward liberation while maintaining accountability to those most affected by intersecting oppressions.

The article’s three-mode framework—examining how power manifests through identity construction, reproduces itself, and can be transformed through resistance and solidarity—provides both analytical clarity and strategic direction. This is philosophy with a purpose: not merely to understand oppression but to dismantle it.

Kong’s methodology itself embodies her theoretical commitments, showing how non-ideal theory must remain grounded in lived experience while developing concepts with broader applicability. Her use of “situated abstraction” offers a model for philosophical work that avoids both false universalism and limiting particularism.

Perhaps most significantly, Kong’s analysis of identity reconstruction as a source of political power offers hope without naive optimism. She shows how those navigating multiple oppressions develop sophisticated forms of consciousness and resistance that can inform broader liberation struggles. The “strategic ambiguity” and “coalitional identities” she describes are not weaknesses but resources for building movements capable of addressing intersecting systems of domination.

As feminist movements worldwide grapple with questions of inclusion, solidarity, and effectiveness, Kong’s framework provides essential tools for navigation. Her insistence that true intersectional feminism requires structural transformation, not just diversification, challenges comfortable assumptions while pointing toward more radical possibilities.

The article stands as both philosophical achievement and political intervention, demonstrating how theory and practice must inform each other in the struggle for justice. In centering those whose experiences reveal the interconnections of multiple systems of oppression, Kong not only advances feminist philosophy but contributes to the broader project of human liberation.